#3: The Red Skull

Johann Schmidt, the man who frightened even Hitler. He was born to a drunken father and an abused mother, whom died giving birth to Johann. Sent off to a boys’ home with a hateful caretaker, his potential for malice began to manifest itself. He became a lieutenant to the Fuhrer himself. Schmidt was at first a field leader, spreading terror and killing hundreds, if not thousands, in his wake. His interest in science and the favor he gained from the Fuhrer allowed him to become a scientist within the regime. This is where he began having run-ins with the Allied soldiers, Captain America and Bucky Barnes. He, along with Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, founded Hydra as a means of establishing a legacy outside of Hitler and the Nazi regime. He put himself into suspended animation to survive to the present day, and has managed to transfer his mind into different bodies to achieve artificial longevity.

The Red Skull is a man without mercy or weakness. He holds hatred beyond measure and represents the depths of evil that can be awoken by ambition. He has killed in droves and has mutilated and experimented upon countless victims. His hatred for humanity as a whole is only surpassed by his hatred of the weak. He identifies this weakness within various minority groups, originally the Jewish people that the Nazis targeted, now the mutants that have been persecuted to near-extinction. His rage is boundless, and he will exterminate anyone of his subordinates that he finds lacking. His goal is nothing less than world domination and the destruction of Captain America’s homeland. His ability to constantly find new followers shows something ugly and wretched within people. Perhaps humanity has a dormant evil lurking within it, and the wrong turn of events on the wrong day can create another agent of hatred akin to Johann Schmidt himself.